On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty, stationed
in international waters, was attacked for two hours by the Israeli military.

That left 34 U.S. sailors and Marines dead, 174 wounded and the Liberty the
most decorated ship for a single engagement in U.S. Navy history.

The Navy Board of Inquiry following the attack
was a farce and cover-up that included admirals threatening the survivors with
court-martial, life imprisonment or “worse” if they ever spoke of the attack,
as detailed in testimony to the commission convened by Adm. Tom Moorer, retired
chief of naval operations and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Justice
has been denied the men of the Liberty for 50 years.

If moved to by his
constituents, Rep. DeSantis could initiate a proper congressional investigation
into the attack on the Liberty.

Like the men on the Liberty, DeSantis is a
Navy man proud of his service as a JAG officer. He knows how a Navy Board of
Inquiry is supposed to work.

At noon on June 8, Gallo and his shipmates
gathered at the tomb for their fallen crew members at Arlington National
Cemetery. Although invited, Congressman DeSantis did not attend.

DeSantis claims to know nothing about the
attack on the Liberty.

We owe the 34 “indispensable Americans” who gave their
lives on the USS Liberty. It’s time “we Americans” let Congressman DeSantis
know about it.

Restino, of Port Orange, is spokesperson for We Are Change - Central Florida.
For 10 years he’s organized USS Liberty Remembrance Day events in Volusia
County.

On June 8, 1967, while patrolling in
international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without
warning or justification by air and naval forces of the state of Israel.

Of a crew of 294 officers and men (including three civilians), the ship
suffered thirty four (34) killed in action and one hundred seventy three (173)
wounded in action.

The ship itself, a Forty Million ($40,000,000) Dollar
state of the art signals intelligence (SIGINT) platform, was so badly damaged
that it never sailed on an operational mission again and was sold in 1970 for
$101,666.66 as scrap.

At 1400 hours, while approximately
about 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast and about 25 nautical
miles northwest of El Arish, USS Liberty’s crew
observed three surface radar contacts closing with their position at high
speed.

A few moments later, the bridge radar crew observed high speed aircraft
passing over the surface returns on the same heading.

Within a few short
moments, and without any warning, Israeli fighter aircraft launched a rocket
attack on USS Liberty.

The aircraft made repeated
firing passes, attacking USS Liberty with
rockets and their internal cannons.

After the first flight of fighter aircraft
had exhausted their ordnance, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter aircraft
continued to prosecute the attack with rockets, cannon fire, and napalm.

During the air attack, USS Liberty’s crew had difficulty contacting Sixth
Fleet to request assistance due to intense communications jamming.

The initial
targets on the ship were the command bridge, communications antennas, and the
four .50 caliber machine guns, placed on the ship to repel boarders.

After the
Israeli fighter aircraft completed their attacks, three Israeli torpedo boats
arrived and began a surface attack about 35 minutes after the start of the air
attack.

The torpedo boats launched a total of five torpedoes, one of which
struck the side of USS Liberty, opposite
the ship’s research spaces.

Twenty-five Americans, in addition to the
nine who had been killed in the earlier air attacks, were killed as a result of
this explosion.